Anthropogenic CO2 Has Slowed Rate of Sea Level Increase

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Believe it or not, sea level rate of change FELL after man started producing vast amounts of the airborne fertilizer called CO2. In 1885 CO2 was about 293 ppm and increased to about 312 in 1952, an increase of about 19 ppm. Between that time, sea levels increased from 0 to 125, or about 1.87 mm/yr. Man then dramatically increased CO2 production from about 2,000 million metric tons/yr in 1952, to about 7,000 million metric tons/yr in 2000. CO2 increased from 312 ppm to 370 ppm in 2000, or an increase of 58 ppm. That increase is over 2x the increase between 1870 to 1952. Sea level however only increased from 125 to a little under 200 in 2000, or about 1.56 mm/yr.

2000 was the last year NASA reports coastal data, and they started satellite data in 1993. CO2 was 357 ppm in 1993 and sea levels were 0 on the new chart. Today sea levels are 85, for an increase of 3.4 mm/yr. Sea levels on the coastal graphs, however, show sea levels increasing 25 between 1993 and 2000, whereas the satellite data shows an increase closer to 20, so the two data sets may not be comparable. CO2 production, however, was around 6,500 million tons/yr in 1993 and was 9,500 million tons/yr in 2013, nearly a 50% increase, yet the slope of the satellite data remains basically unchanged between 1993 and today and has actually been flat over the past 3 years. In other words, an increase in the rate of CO2 production hasn’t altered the rate of sea level increase.

From the two available NASA data sets, we learn that the rate of sea level increase fell using the coastal data set with an increase in CO2, and we learned that the rate of CO2 production doesn’t impact the rate of change sea level as measured by the newer satellite data. Anyway, the Greenland Glaciers have been shown to be melting from below and the melting has nothing to do with CO2 no matter how you spin it.

Additional Information

ONLY 0.8% Of Coastal Tide Gauges Show Sea Level Rise On Track To Reach IPCC Year 2100 Projection! Source